The mystery of the Gaza flight to South Africa continues to send shockwaves, as more questions mount and many threads remain unresolved. Behind the flight that landed in Johannesburg carrying 153 Palestinians without travel documents, after being moved from Rafah to Ramon Airport and then flown via Kenya, stands an organization called Al Majd Europe — reportedly affiliated with another company founded by an Israeli holding Estonian citizenship.
Ynet has learned that Al Majd contacted the Migration Directorate at the Defense Ministry — established under Defense Minister Israel Katz and about which little is known — which passed the details of the 153 Palestinians on the flight to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Defense Ministry unit administering civilian issues in the West Bank and Gaza.
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The passengers believed they were headed to India. The Palestinian ambassador to South Africa on the flight that landed in Johannesburg
(Photo: REUTERS)
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola described the flight’s arrival as “suspicious,” saying it pointed to “a clear intention to expel Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.” He said Pretoria “no longer wants any flights to our territory” under such circumstances and warned that the incident appeared to be “part of a larger plan to relocate Palestinians from Palestine to different parts of the world,” which South Africa strongly opposes.
Daily Haaretz reported on Sunday that Al Majd is owned by the company Talent Globus, founded by the Israeli Estonian national Tomer Janar Lind. According to his LinkedIn profile, Lind now works primarily in the Gulf States — the UAE and Qatar — and he also reportedly established another consulting company in Dubai.
The Gaza residents who landed in Johannesburg, where they were detained by South African authorities for about 12 hours under harsh conditions, arrived on a charter flight operated by Romanian firm FlyLili. According to the South African site Daily Maverick, some passengers held tickets to Canada and Australia, while most believed their final destination was India.
On Al Majd’s European website, a large photo of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque appears alongside the slogan: “Supporting Palestinian Lives, One Donation at a Time.” Al Jazeera reported that despite the company claiming to have been founded in Germany in 2010, its domain was only registered in February of this year.
Al Jazeera further reported that when the Al Majd site is opened, a pop up appears warning against impostors pretending to be company employees, with phone numbers listed for “legitimate representatives.” One of these is a Palestinian man named Muayad, whose number is linked to the owner of a gym formerly operating in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Muayad posted in June an image of himself boarding a FlyLili aircraft — the same that later flew the Palestinians to South Africa — with the caption: “I left the Gaza Strip — and I will not return. I left a land of war, hunger and ignorance, a homeland where exile became more compassionate than staying. As long as the killing continues, peace to Gaza — from afar.” Al Majd’s site lists Muayad as one of two “people behind the company,” alongside a person named Adnan, who is described as “humanitarian projects coordinator” in Jerusalem.
About Adnan, the site states that as part of his role at Al Quds (the Arabic name for Jerusalem) he “Supports and coordinates aid efforts in Al-Quds, working with partners to ensure effective delivery of humanitarian assistance and smooth project operations.”
In addition to the listed phone numbers for its representatives, the company itself has no official address or contact number. Its website simply states that its offices are located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem—a claim whose accuracy is unclear. Al Jazeera reported that the company’s email address leads to an automated response stating the address does not exist.
The X account (formerly Twitter) for Al Majd was registered in December 2024 and has only nine followers. The account has not posted any content since its creation. On the website, clicking on links—including those for Facebook and Instagram—simply redirects users back to the top of the homepage. A section dedicated to partner organizations includes no actual names, with four placeholders stating that details will be “announced soon.”
Al Jazeera also reported that the domain for Al Majd’s site was registered through Namecheap, a company that has been cited in several cybersecurity reports for enabling online fraud due to its low-cost and simple registration process. The report noted that some donors to Al Majd were asked to send money to private bank accounts, rather than to any account officially linked to the organization.
The site also features a section titled “The Lives We've Changed,” with supposed cases in which Al Majd provided aid to victims of Middle Eastern conflicts. One story tells of Mona Farouk, a 29-year-old from Aleppo, Syria, who allegedly fled to Lebanon in 2013 due to the country’s civil war. Her story is dated March 22, 2023—even though the website itself only went live earlier this year.
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'Mona Farouk' was 'saved in 2014 thanks to Al‑Majd'—but the photo shows a different woman photographed last year
In her account, Farouk says: “I fled from Aleppo to Lebanon with my mother in 2013, but the situation in Tripoli quickly deteriorated after the fighting spread in 2014. We found ourselves trapped in danger once again. The Al-Majd Foundation was the only organization that reached out to help us and moved us to a safe place. Heartfelt thanks to the Al-Majd Foundation for its continued support and for saving us at a critical moment.”
A photo accompanying the story shows a smiling young Arab woman in what appears to be a typical Middle Eastern city. However, the image is actually of a woman named Abeer Khayyat, taken in Tripoli, Lebanon, in December 2024 by Middle East Eye journalist Madeline Edwards.